News stories the mainstream media missed : 01/29/11**

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Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.

* Another day, another 80’s TV actor caught doing somethin’ illegal. Larry Wilcox, the guy who played Jon from the 80’s TV show CHiPS, was busted for a crime he didn’t commit. OK, he was busted for a crime he won’t be spending any jail time for, but still I guess you can say the CHiPS are down for him now. I should let the CHiPS fall where they may. Perhaps he had a CHiPs on his shoulder? OK, I’m out of crap puns now. LETS HEAR SOME 80s TV MUSIC! [SUN SENTINEL]



* Dear God, we’re really using civilian tech and homemade apps to fight a modern war? Maybe the military would buy my ghetto “Iron Soldier Man” armor made of trash cans and pizza boxes after all! [FOX NEWS]

* Criminals sure are creative. Extremely stupid, but creative! I feel sorry for the police officer having to deal with this one… “So let me get this straight, sir. Your girlfriend, who is in multiple pieces in a cardboard barrel in the back seat of your car, died two days ago after you shagged her to death? Ah. Of course. It all makes perfect sense now! Might I interest you in trying on a pair of steel bracelets I have with me?” [MSNBC]

* On a different kind of crazy, the Voyager 2 spacecraft launched into space in 1977. It’s been in space for 34 years. It flew by Uranus over 25 years ago. It is around 91.898 AU (13.747 billion km, 8.542 billion miles or 0.001443 light years) from the Sun and it STILL HASN’T LEFT OUR SOLAR SYSTEM! That’s a whole lot of crazy if you think about it. [SPACEREF]

* Meanwhile, back on Earth, hundreds of people are actually surprised to see a gorilla walking upright at a local zoo. What? Hundreds of years of hard scientific evidence and research by brilliant dedicated people not good enough to prove evolution? Dammit, we’re never getting off this planet are we? [HUFFINGTON POST]

* In other science-related news, there’s a growing chance that the next few decades may develop a “cure” for aging! I really really really hope “death from aging” will one day be nothing more than a footnote in the medical journals. I have a feeling “death from stupid” will always be with us, though. [POPULAR MECHANICS]

* Speaking of death, when hoarders die, who gets the hoarders hoard? The relatives? The state? Maybe History channel or National Geographic can make a show about it. A cross between “Pickers”, “Pawn Stars”, and “How Clean is Your House” with rooms full of rotting piles of crap that make you go DAAAAAAA. Can’t miss! [NEWSWEEK]

*And finally, Texas got caught in a lie. It’s Texas, so it’s a big big big lie. The Obama stimulus, which the gover-nah constantly bitched and complained about, was actually used to cover 97% of the Texas budget this last year. You would think that much hypocrisy would get somebody struck by lightning! [THE ATLANTIC]

** Actually published Monday because it was my wife’s birthday weekend!

Two websites to see what is going on in Egypt

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Whats going on in Egypt right now at this moment is going to change the world.

Live coverage is at Al Jazeera’s website here.

A “Why this is happening in Egypt 101” is at Mother Jone’s site here.

I’ve been glued to the Al Jazeera page all day.

Still updating…

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Still working on the blog backend here.

New posts should be up around tomorrow.

RT Tuesdays : 01/25/11**

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Every Tuesday (** and occasionally on a Wednesday!) I re-post all zee tweets that didn’t originate from this blog just to keep everything in sync.

This week on Twitter…

  • I’m at the age where I can wear comfortable and expensive clothes over tight and cool clothes. Dammit. (25 Jan)
  • I tried growing my hair out this last year. I wanted “rockstar”. I got “homeless muppet”. Can you sue your own DNA? (24 Jan)
  • Practical joke that needs to be invented: Rubber Piñatas. (21 Jan)
  • Is it a law every mall has to have a knife / blade store? (20 Jan)
  • It’s 59 in the Texas Valley right now. I’m in short sleeves and sandals. Everyone else in thick jackets. Arctic gear should show around 40s. (20 Jan)
PROMO DVDs?

PROMO DVDs?


  • Dear SPCA: I’ll donate to “bring a puppy home from the war” if you bring a soldier home with every animal too. http://yfrog.com/h37jgtvj (19 Jan)
Forget the animals! Bring home the soldiers!

Forget the animals! Bring home the soldiers!


  • Motivational spkr said there are some questions with no answers. I asked if there were answers that have no questions. Oh yes- he hates me. (19 Jan)

Going to update the blog – BRB

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Going to make some changes to the backend of the blog. Things should be back (hopefully) soon.

Want to report an internet scam or online crime? Go IC3!

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Have you ever wanted to report on a internet scam or some other online crime? Check out IC3.

IC3, AKA the Internet Crime Complaint Center, is a partnership between some other Federal alphabet soup agencies – the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA).

Technically it should be IC3 = SUM (FBI + NW3C + BJA), but that’s just murder on a business card.

Anyhow, IC3 was set up to “receive, develop, and refer criminal complaints regarding the rapidly expanding arena of cyber crime” and is pretty easy to use. You click through a multiple-choice questionnaire on the site and fill in the blanks as you go along. It takes about two minutes for a typical form.

Maybe if enough people use this system, some of those “I give you this sum $3, 750,000.00 Million Dollars from the bank in south America” kind of emails will go away.

Right. Here’s the official link to the report-a-scam-and-crime website.

The FDA is mad at Nite Rider? The 80’s supercar?

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When I heard the FDA was highly ticked off at Knight Rider, I immediately thought of that super-awesome 80’s intro…



Doo dee dee dee… dee dee dee deeeee… doo dooo do dee dee deee….

But then when I finally stopped humming the theme song and started reading the press release, I saw the FDA wasn’t ticked about Knight Rider from the 80s. It’s all about “Nite Rider Maximum Sexual Enhancer For Men”.

Ah. Slight difference there.

Anyhow, the FDA is pulling “Nite Rider Maximum Sexual Enhancer For Men” and “STUD Capsule for Men” off the shelves because…. wait for it… they were filled with generic Viagra!

The FDA says using these pills may screw up your blood pressure, and since “Nite Rider Maximum Sexual Enhancer For Men” has a bunch of Sildenafil, it falls under the “unapproved new drugs” category that the FDA can come stomp all over.

Chunk ’em if you got ’em!

Here’s the official FDA release notice.

Monday Morning Music : 01/24/11

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Every Monday I like to post some music to start the week off on the right foot.

This week…

The Left Rights – “I’m On Crack”



Kellee Maize – City of Champions



Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers – The Drum Thunder Suite



…and finally, The Power Station – Some Like It Hot

News stories the mainstream media missed : 01/22/11**

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Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.

* Once again, the mainstream media plays it safe. Instead of a headline like “A MAJOR CONTINENT IS SPLITTING IN HALF! REPUBLICANS SAY OBAMA TO BLAME! DEMOCRATS SAY REPUBLICANS CAN SUCK IT! KIM JONG IL SAYS HE WANTS SOUTH KOREAN CHEESE ON HIS WHOPPER!”, the European media goes all factual with it and says “Violent Seismic Activity Tearing Africa in Two”. Hey waitaminute, that does sound pretty bad! [SPIEGEL]

* Part of me wishes headlines like “German Police Pick up Drunken Owl” was the only breaking news in the world. Then I think of how mind-blisteringly soul-numbingly boring that world would be, and I move along. Oh yeah, German police really did pick up a drunken owl. It was a hoot. [SPIEGEL]

* I’m actually amazed people are genuinely surprised when nasty stuff they write in emails comes back to bite them right in the nalgas. Case in point –  a dude was typing smack to his attorney through his corporate email account and was shocked (yes, SHOCKED) when his company read his email! He said “Aaaaayyy! It was attorney client privilege there!”, but his company said “Up your nose with a rubber hose!” Or something like that. [WIRED]

* Highly anal retentive English teachers of the world unite!  Is it time to phase out the old double space between sentences rule?  Does it really matter how many spaces are between sentences anymore?  O spacebar! my spacebar! our fearful mark is done;  The sentence has weather’d every rack, the quote we sought is won! [SLATE]

* A man was brought back to life after three and a half hours without a heartbeat thanks to a machine that “performed 20,000 life-saving chest compressions”. Good thing it wasn’t 19,900 life-saving chest compressions and 100 “not really feelin’ it” chest compressions. [NEWS.COM.AU]

* Since the fatherland homeland security can search your cell phone whenever the ingrown buttwarts feel like it they have a valid suspicion of illegal activities, you may want to encrypt your cell phone and tell them to eff off!. Here’s how! [ARS TECHNIA]

* And finally, I predict the end of waterfountains at all malls because of this upcoming genius. This mensa candidate was walking and texting (as most of us do!) but then fell flat into a waterfountain in the center of the mall. Instead of taking the opportunity to fish out dollar coins, this genius is suing the mall for “not helping her”. Not helping her WHAT? Run nice things for everybody even faster? [ABC]

** Actually published Monday because too many things went BOOM this weekend. Yo. Def. What?

iAd rant – AKA why I’m not updating my iPhone apps

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It used to be the most aggravating aspect of the iPhone was AT&T’s craptacular service. But recently there’s a challenger to the title, and this one is coming up strong.

I’m talking about developers and their rotten implementation of iAds through software updates.

Let me start off with a “good” example of what an app update should be. The “Genius Scan” update for January has two pages of enhancements to what is already in place, assorted bug fixes, and extensive information on what exactly is being updated in the application.

iAdRant1478


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Perfect. Very straightforward. I updated this app without a second thought. And no iAds? Excellent!

Some apps are adding iAds to their updates even though they were not initially in place. While I’m not a fan of this, I do understand it being a financial necessity for some developers. So long as the iAd addition is done in what I would consider “good faith” and something significant of the software is also value-enhanced, I think it’s OK.

As an example, Dragon Dictation’s recent update fixed some bugs, added some features, and inserted ads only for their own products.

iAdRant1472


To me, this is a good example of adding iAds to a product and adding value to the application update at the same time. I also appreciate the ads are focused on their own product line and not “carpet bombing” me with every product sold on the internet. Good job!

An update to the “Ministry of Sound Radio” app starts entering the “maybe” update category and strains the value-added premise for me.

iAdRant1476


While a one-button click to contact the studio is interesting, it’s not really enough added value for me to immediately apply the update and have ads all over the app’s interface. The app is working fine for me now, so I’m not going upgrade this app anytime soon.

The app “My Famous Portrait” is another example of this.

iAdRant1471


So far I haven’t crashed in the app, so until I start seeing getting kicked out, there’s no imperative for me to update and have ads clutter the applications’ interface either.

On the far end of “maybe” updates are apps like “Ruler+ CM”

iAdRant1477


The term “user opportunities” is just vague enough to make me skip the update. Yes the value added updates are there, but what does “user opportunities” mean? If I don’t know what an app update entails, and if my previous version is working fine, any new updates won’t get installed.

At the fringe of the “maybe” update category are app updates like “Rolling 5 Dice Poker”

iAdRant1475


Just saying “we’re putting ads in!” is the same as “bait and switch” to me. The app was free, but now it isn’t! And now the previously clean interface will be junked up with banner ads! No thanks.

Descending into the final “hell no” update category is the “Free/Not Free/Just Upgrade!” switch. Apps that were free at one point, but now have iAds in their updates. The only way to get rid of the iAds is to pay for a new update! Fun!

The app “I’m Right Here” is a perfect example of this.

iAdRant1474


No significant enhancements on the update. And in trade for my update it’s now “free”?

“Sudoku Solver App” is another example of this. Free at release, but now it’s not!

iAdRant1473


At the very bottom of the “hell no” pile are the app updates that combine the “Free/Not Free/Just Upgrade!” iAd addition with the removal of existing app features!

“At Once” is the most recent example of this.

iAdRant1469


Adding Google Buzz? Ok, that’s a nice addition. But taking away the landscape keyboard use? Removing a working feature in the app I already have installed on my iPhone in trade for a paid upgrade? That’s evil-twirly moustache kinds of heartless.

iAdRant1468


I’ll never ever update apps that take away features from previous versions, iAds or not.

TL;DR / summary version…

Developers! Add something of value to your app if you’re going to start with the iAds. Make it something fun or useful. Make me think the iAds are part of the upgrade “cost” and I’ll be OK with it.

Apple! Give us a “ignore this application’s update” option!